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Human behaviour

Brain trust

Nature volume 435, pages 571–572 (2005)Cite this article

As is the case with other social interactions, financial transactions depend on trust. That fact is behind ingenious experiments that explore the neurobiological underpinnings of human behaviour.

As a group, the investors who received oxytocin exhibited more trust in the anonymous trustee than did the investors who received the placebo. Because intranasally administered oxytocin crosses the blood–brain barrier into the central nervous system, Kosfeld et al. (page 673 of this issue)1 conclude that the central action of oxytocin increases trusting behaviour; and because the oxytocin spray did not change the behaviour of the trustees, it seems that oxytocin only increases trust, not the reliability of the trustee. This is a remarkable finding, and to explain its significance we must first say a word about trust and about oxytocin itself.

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  1. the Department of Neurology, University of Iowa College of Medicine, 200 Hawkins Drive, Iowa City, 52242, Iowa, USA

    Antonio Damasio

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  1. Antonio Damasio
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Damasio, A. Brain trust. Nature 435, 571–572 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/435571a

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